Water quality

[PalmBch]

You don't necessary need to buy Poland Spring Water.
If you have a fridge with water dispenser & ice, you could 100% use it. It's Fresh taste and 99.9% Cleaned if you use filter.

Otherwise, just buy your own filter and drink fresh tap water.

[Michael3512]

Just like any place, the water quality does vary throughout the state. In general, I would say that NY has softer, cleaner water than NJ.

[newdude05]

i dont trust bottled water anymore than i trust the city water. The bottled water industry is not regulated and they can give you whatever they want, are you going to test every bottle of water you drink? not to mention how wasteful it is to have water delivered both to your wallet and the environment.

Your best bet is to get a high quality water filtration system, not the crap from target. I mean a professional grade NSF certified system that usually costs $300-$700. Then you get to control your own destiny.

Now once we decide to go the water filter route, there are 2 types each with their own advantages/disadvantages:

1) Reverse Osmosis - this essentially removes everything from the water and all you end up with is pure H2O. Good right? not so fast. The negative is it also removes the "good" minerals and trace elements from the water the body needs. WHO has issued warnings that long term consumption of RO water absent the "good" essential minerals can potentially cause serious health issues. In conclusion - noone knows what happens if you consume RO water long term, because RO as a technology for water filter only started become widely used in homes just in the last 10 years.

2) Carbon - this essentially removes many of the harmful/toxic stuff from the water such as lead, mercury, chlorine etc.. and it does NOT remove the "good" minerals and trace elements. Great? not so fast! One thing it does NOT remove is Fluoride, which many believe is bad for your health. In the late 50s, fluoride started being added to the city drinking water widely across the country, as a way to prevent tooth decay/cavities. With the current advancement in sonic toothbrush and tooth pastes, this chemical should long be removed but alas government never works that way.

So as you can see, it's choosing the lesser of the 2 evils. My personal opinion, i am firmly in the option 2) carbon camp. Reason is very simple - fluoridation of water has been widely used in this country for a good 50+ years now that affected almost majority of the population, yet although there are concerns about the health risks, there is no conclusive evidence still that the quantity introduced in our drinking water really has an impact on our long term health. I mean 50+ years AND hundreds of millions of people drinking it is a pretty good lab test.

This compared to RO which is only recently introduced by comparison and tested against a much smaller sample of the population, we just dont know enough of its long term health risks. WHO's report is also not encouraging.


Now in term of the actual filter.. for desk top there is the "Big Berkey" water filter. This is the gold standard in water filter, it is military grade that can be used to filter anything. The downside is you have to keep filling the bucket like any desktop water filter jugs (there is no under counter version). And it does get annoying over time.

For direct faucet to cup under counter carbon filters, i recommend the multipure water filter, it simply has the best performance and of course NSF certified.

Both options are expensive, i paid over $600 for my multipure filter, but it gave me peace of mind.

For RO filters, there are many top rated choices on amazon. But as i said, i dont trust RO and prefer carbon based filters.

Also lastly, those fridge filters are only good for a few ice cubes, i would not rely on them as the main water filter, it just doesnt have the performance to filter out many of the bad stuff.

[DannyHobkins]

Desani and Aquafina is basically Atlanta tap water. Wish the state would stop adding fluoride.

[ultgar]

Not sure if TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) is the benchmark for water quality but the tap water measured at my mothers house in Ridgewood was 450mg/liter (EPA likes it to be below 500).

I read 250mg out of the tap in Emerson, NJ (also Bergen County). Poland Spring measures under 30mg/liter on the meter.

[nybbler]

TDS is meaningless for water quality. A lot of calcium won't hurt you at all, a much smaller amount of arsenic will.

NJ does not mandate fluoridation, and most towns/systems do not fluoridate. None in Bergen, I think. However, something rarely mentioned when this comes up is that much NJ water contains fluoride naturally; for instance, the Short Hills system of NJ American Water has a typical 1.0 ppm fluoride level (same as you'd get from an additive)

I find a carbon filter in the fridge makes my water (NJ American Short Hills) taste just fine. Without it, it is sometimes fine and sometimes you can taste the residual chlorine.

[ultgar]

Originally Posted by nybbler

TDS is meaningless for water quality. A lot of calcium won't hurt you at all, a much smaller amount of arsenic will.

TDS is not totally meaningless.........not sure you'd want to drink water with a TDS of over 1000. Average tap water is quoted as 140-400ppm. Ridgewood tap water is above average.

Here's a post from this forum from back in 2008..........

Ok, here is the story. We live in Ridgewood and our water is really hard. So, the other day we were at Home Depot and they offered to come to our house and do a free water test through a company called Rain Soft. So, they came and tested, and the results were pretty scary. He tested for calcium, chlorine, etc. The levels were very high. We don't drink tap water but it still gets into your body through showers, cooking, etc. They claim that their device, which is basically a water softener, cleans the water from calcium, heavy metals, chlorine and other crap that's in the water. The demonstration of his product, which he did in our kitchen, was pretty powerful. The cost is about $3,500. It's a one time fee, no maintanance costs or anything. It seems like a lot, but if it really makes the water so much better and safer for us, then its worth it. What do you guys think? Does anyone have water softener in their house?

[joee5]

We filter it and so far are cancer free. So I guess it's okay